UC President Janet Napolitano needs to go

Californians who support our state’s vast and storied public university system — and that means all Californians — are properly up in arms about the ongoing arrogance and lack of transparency coming from its president’s office.

It’s one thing to be a backer of the world-class education and research it provides to Californians and students from literally all over the world, all of whose peoples understand the importance and prestige of attending the greatest public university on the planet. With its 10 campuses, five medical centers, three national laboratories, 150 academic disciplines, 600 graduate degree programs, 61 Nobel laureates and and 238,700 students, there is simply nothing like it on Earth.

What even some Californians sometimes forget is that along with being a cultural and economic driver for our state, the University of California system is a huge economic engine for the state and the nation. Along with the 430,000 jobs it supports, increasingly paid for by philanthropy and tuition rather than taxes, the UC system contributes an estimated $46.3 billion to the California economy, and it does so efficiently: It secures $7 in federal and private dollars for every $1 in research funding provided by the state of California.

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